Presentation of Lozère

The Department of LozËre has the least number of inhabitants
(72,800) and the highest average elevation (c. 1,000 m a.s.l.)
among the French departments. Being the only landlocked department of
Region Languedoc-Roussillon, it forms
a kind of "head", perpendicular ot the Mediterranean coast. However,
the department is historically related to
Languedoc and its incorporation into
Languedoc-Roussillon is not illogical. The territory of the
department of Lozère is made of high plateaus (granitic:
Margeride and Mount Lozère; basaltic,
Aubrac; limestone, Causses; schistose,
Cévennes) separated by valleys (Allier, Lot, Tarn, Truyère).

Since industry is nearly inexistent, except in
Saint-Chély-d'Apcher (electrometallurgy), and mountain
agriculture is less and less profitable in spite of the quality of
its products, the Department of Lozère mostly lives from
tourism. The building of the toll-free A75 highway between
Clermont-Ferrand and Montpellier
has opened up the department. In the past, tourism activity
was concentrated in the Gorges of Tarn, but other areas such as
Margeride and Aubrac attract more and more tourists who prefer less
crowded areas. Winter tourism is more problematic since weather is
harsh, access difficult and elevation rather low. A few cross country
skiing resort shave been developed recently.

Ivan Sache, 30 July 2002

History of Lozère and Gévaudan

The area covered by the department of Lozère matches nearly
exactly the territory of the former County of Gévaudan.

Gévaudan got its name from the the Gaul tribe of
Gabales, who were allied to Vercingetorix's Arvernes (who gave
their name to Auvergne) and were defeated
along with them by the Romans in Alesia. After the conquest, the
Romans maintained the capital of the Gabales, Anderitum,
renamed Gabalum (now Javols, a village of c. 300
inhabitants).

In the early Middle Ages, the Carolingian kingdom progressively
dissolved. Known as pagus gabalum, Gévaudan was placed under the rule of the powerful
Count of Toulouse. In 1096,
Count of Toulouse, leaving for the Crusade, transmitted his rights on the eastern part of Gévaudan to the Bishop of Mende. In the beginning of the 10th
century, Mende had already superseded Javols as the religious and administrative capital of Gévaudan. The western part of Gévaudan constituted the Viscounty of Grèzes (now a village of c. 200 inhabitants), which was placed under the rule of a relative of the Count of Toulouse. By rights of inheritance, the Count of Barcelona and finally the King of Aragon became the ruler of the Viscounty.

In the 12th century, Adalbert, Bishop of Mende, took
advantage of the lack of interest of the nominal rulers of
Gévaudan to increase his personal power. He travelled to Paris
and asked for the patronage of King of France Louis VII (1120-1180).
The King granted him the temporal power on the area by the Golden
Bull of Gévaudan (Bulle royale du Gévaudan), a
Royal Act sealed with gold. Accordingly, Gévaudan was the first
Occitan-speaking country to acknowledge
the (nominal) suzerainty of the King of France. Gévaudan was
divided into eight Baronies, which were in constant rebellion against
the Bishop of Mende.
In 1257, following the Albigensian Crusade, the former possessions of the Count of Toulouse were incorporated to the Kingdom of France. No longer able to exert his power on the Viscounty of Grèzes, the Bishop of Mende started a long legal procedure
against the King. The case was solved in 1307 when Bishop Guillaume
Durand and King Philippe IV the Handsome (1268-1314) signed an act of
paréage. According to the French feudal laws, a pareage
was an agreement signed between a powerful lord and a weaker one,
usually an ecclesiastic. The lord should protect the ecclesiastic,
who in exchange should give back to the lord half of the income from
the area, which remained legally undivided. The Principality of
Andorra was ruled according to a similar
pareage between the President of the French Republic and the Bishop
of Urgell until 1993. According to the 1307 pareage, the Bishop of
Mende was granted the title of Count of Gévaudan, could mint
coins and dispense lower justice. A Royal Bailiff was appointed to
dispense higher justice (he could pronounce death sentence) in the
town of Marvejols, which had superseded Grèzes as the capital
of the County of Gévaudan. A joint Court was appointed to
solve the problems involving the eight Barons. Although being
nominally part of Languedoc, Gévaudan kept its own States
General until 1789. The assembly gathered every year, alternatively
in Mende and Marvejols, and was presided by the Bishop of Mende,
assisted by the eight Barons.

During the same period, Gévaudan was a crossroads of
pilgrimage trails. The Compostella trail from
Le Puy crossed the high plateaus of
Aubrac and Margeride. These areas were characterized by a very harsh
climate and were infested with wild animals and bandits. To
protect the pilgrims, monk-soldiers established fortified towns and
monasteries and provided an escort to the pilgrims. The most famous
monastery was the dômerie d'Aubrac, founded in 1120 by
Augustinian monks sent by Viscount of Flanders Adalrd, and whose Father Superior, the Dom, was appointed directly by the Holy See. On Mount Lozère, the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem founded the Commanderies of Gap-Francès and Palhers, controlling most of the strategic roads of Gévaudan. The roads in the eastern part of Gévaudan, especially the old Via Regordana, were controlled by the Knights of la
Garde-Guérin, appointed by the Bishop of Mende. The
huge income generated by the pilgrimages caused permanent
disputes among the Knights, the Bishop and the Baillif.

During the Hundred Years' War, the English could not seize
Marvejols and St. Chély d'Apcher, while they managed to enter
Châteauneuf-de-Randon (now a village of c. 500 inhabitants).
After having expelled the English from Chaliers (Auvergne) on 27 June
1380, the famous Constable Bertrand du Guesclin (1320-1380) besieged
Châteauneuf. The tradition reports that the Constable drunk
water from the fountain of la Clauze, which was much too cold and
caused his death on 13 July 1380. Since the defenders of
Châeauneuf had agreed to surrender if they had not received
help, the Constable's death was kept secret. After the surrender, the
keys of the town were placed on Du Guesclin's coffin.

In the beginning of the 16th century, Gévaudan was
extremely wealthy, but the Wars of Religion ruined the country. The
Protestants settled in Gévaudan around 1550. In 1586, the
Royal town of Marvejols was totally looted by the German soldiers of
Admiral of Joyeuse. After the proclamation of the Tolerance Edict
(Edit de Nantes) in 1598 by King Henri IV, Marvejols,
rebuilt from scratch, became a Protestant safety place. Henri IV
had also to deal with the fanatic Protestant warlord Matthieu Merle,
who had seized several town, including Mende in 1579, and finally
appointed him Governor of Mende. Following the suppression of the
Tolerance Edict by Louis XIV (1685) and the repression organized
against the Protestants, the guerilla of the Camisards took
place in the Cévennes from 1702 to 1704. The repression
stopped only in 1787 when Louis XVI reestablished religious
tolerance.

At the end of the 19th century, tourism was initiated in
Lozère by the Parisian lawyer Édouard Martel (1859-1938).
Martel, recognized as the founder of spelunking, discovered several beautiful caves of the south of Lozère. Using modern means of
investigation, especially the phone, Martel was assisted by local
enthousiasts, the most famous of them being the locksmith Louis
Armand. On 18 September 1897, Armand told Martel he had found the
most beautiful cave ever seen. Martel immediatly named the cave after
his finder and advised Armand to buy the land above the cave, which
is now the worldwide famous Aven Armand. Martel also
designed the scenic trails of the Gorges of Tarn and Jonte. The
network of metallic ladders, hooks and handrails he implemented in
the most difficult places is still in use. Being not only an explorer
but also a talentuous writer, Martel attracted with his books a lot
of tourists in Lozère. Before him, another talentuous
traveler-writer, Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), hiked through
the Cévennes in 1879 with a jenny named Modestine and related
his journey in the wonderful book "Journey through the
Cévennes with a jenny". In Nasbinals (Aubrac), the bonesetter
Pierre Brioude, a.k.a. Pierrounet, attracted so many patients
between 1880 and 1907 that three hotels were built to house his
customers.

As many other areas in France, Gévaudan was bled dry during
the two World Wars. A Lozerian soldier named Auguste Joseph
Trébuchon was killed near Dom-le-Mesnil, close to the river
Meuse, on 11 November 1918 at 10:45, that is 15 minutes before the end
of the fightings. All the soldiers killed on that day were officially
declared killed on 10 November, in order "not to desesperate their
family" (sic). In 1943-44, the second most important Resistance
maquis was set up near Mont Mouchet (1465 m a.s.l.) in Upper
Margeride and spread over the departments of
Cantal, Haute-Loire
and Lozère. In May 1944, 4,000
maquisards resisted to the assault given by 8,000 German soldiers.
The Germans withdrew and burned down the villages of
Clavières, Lorcières and Paulhac and all the isolated
farms in the area as retaliatory measures.

The most famous inhabitant of Gévaudan is the
Beast of Gé;vaudan. Between 1764 and 1767, more than 100 young
people were murdered by a mysterious beast. These murders caused
political troubles and King Louis XV (1710-1774) sent his First
Arquebusier, who shot a wolf but did not stop the murders. The Bishop
of Mende organized public prayers, to no avail either. In 1767, Jean
Chastel, from Saint-Flour, killed a beast
with consecrated bullets. The identity of the Beast, still not
clearly established, is a matter o legends - even if
the crimes were real and documented. One of the most probable
hypothesis is the criminal association between a serial killer and a
domesticated beast. Antoine Chastel, the son of the "official" Beas'st
killer, lived in Mont Mouchet surrounded with a domesticated hyena
and other beasts of that ilk. Antoine mysteriously "disappeared"
after his father had killed the Beast. Moreover, several of the local
reports mention wounds carefully made with knifes and definitively not
of animal origin.

Ivan Sache, 30 July 2002

Flag of Lozère

The flag of Lozère is the banner of arms of the former
County of Gévaudan, summarizing the rather complicated history of the area.
A seal of the joint Court of Gévaudan, dated 1310, shows on
its left part fleurs-de-lis and on its right part the Bishop of Mende
holding a sword and a crozier, above vertical bars. The pattern of
this seal is reproduced in the banner of arms of Gévaudan.

Due to its geographical isolation and very harsh winter weather,
Aubrac is hardly inhabited. The traditional activity of the area is
bovine rearing, most of the cows belonging to the Aubrac cattle.
Aubrac breeding seems to have started in the 17th century when a
Benedictine abbey was established on the plateau. In 1840, the
Agricultural Society of Aveyron was created, and the Aubrac herd-book
was initiated in 1892. Aubrac cattle is well adapted to harsh
climatic conditions but its milk and meat production is fairly low.
In 1975, Aubrac cattle was closed to extinction and a conservation
program was launched. A syndicate for breeding and promotion of
Aubrac cattle, called Union-Aubrac, was created in 1979.
There are now c. 68,000 Aubrac cows. Their milk is used to make
the Laguiole cheese (a variety of Cantal), and their
horns are used to make the handles of the famous Laguiole knives
(Laguiole is locally pronounced "lyoll").

The breeding system in Aubrac is based on transhumance. From the
end of May to mid-October, cows graze in the pastures of the plateau,
while they spend the rest of the year in the more clement valleys. As
it is the case in other parts of the world, the start of the transhumance
is a big festival. In Aubrac, the festival is called fête de
la montade. For their trip from the villages to the pastures, the
cows bear flags, mostly the French Tricolore but also the
Occitan flag (Aubrac is part of the
Occitan linguistic area). These are really big flags, more or less of
the same size as the head of the cow.